


how cracks become debris.

by trickstered



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen, Henry Lonesdale, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 01:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19453426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickstered/pseuds/trickstered
Summary: Mildly AU; Kieren finds the bracelet earlier.





	how cracks become debris.

**Author's Note:**

> Another tumblr transplant from like 2014.

Kieren sees the bracelet. It’s a fleeting glance at a trivial thing, but he says, confused: "when did Henry give you that? Before he went missing?" and Jem’s whole life turns upside down in one moment. 

-

She feels a lot of things at once. There’s the usual guilt that comes along whenever anyone brings Henry up. Jem’s gut heaves and she swallows down bile while Kieren looks at her, face bare and his eyebrows knitted together in puzzlement. She almost slams the door in his face, but then there’s the issue of:

"What do you mean Henry?" And then, immediately after, she says: "Gary gave me this. He made it, he -"

"No," says Kieren and there’s a horrible look forming on his face. Jem recognizes it as him piecing clues together. He looks horrified. "No, Henry had it - at the party. He was goin’ on about how he was gonna give it to you. Christ - _Gary_ gave you it?"

There’s a saying, about feeling like you’re being punched in the gut. Jem feels it ten fold. Kieren looks - he looks frighteningly angry. It’s not something she’s seen him wear before. Gary, she realises numbly, is who Kieren thinks is responsible for Henry’s disappearance. Nothing makes sense, but - but she can’t let this be a confrontation that happens. Things are tense enough.

Reluctantly, she grabs his arm and drags him inside her room. 

"It weren’t him," she says. "It weren’t Gary," she says louder. She struggles to meet Kieren’s eyes. She sits down on the edge of her bed, hands between her knees and her eyes downcast. "It was me."

-

How do you tell someone you love that you have done something so terrible? So unforgivably horrible? Jem tries. Hours later, her eyes puffy and she’s told him what happened, the weight of the truth hangs between them, spilling out and filling up the room. It feels like it's sucking out all the air; an ugly black hole of Jem's making which she can no longer control. The angry part of her -- the nasty, cruel and festering thing inside of her -- thinks in a blithe, bitter way: _look, now we've both fucked up, haven't we?_ And immediately she is ashamed of it. 

It's not the same. Kieren made a choice, and Jem's feelings towards it have no place _here_.

She killed a child, and Kieren quite obviously doesn't know what to do. The knee-jerk reaction is to be furious - and he is. She can see that. He’s furious with Gary and Maxine, furious about the cover up. But Jem? Jem’s a mess, and _he_ can see that. He has no idea how he hasn’t seen it before. 

They sit there, for a long while, Kieren cradling her head to his chest, fingers combing through her hair while he assures it’ll be okay. That he’ll sort it - that he’ll make sure she’s okay. Realizes, silently, that Jem needs help just as he does and neither of them are going to get it in Roarton. It’s a festering wound, this place, and Jem’s infected. He looks down at her, knows he has to get her out. 

He just doesn’t know how, not when he’s stuck in Roarton and stuck in the house, too. 

-

So he searches for therapists and colleges in London where she can do her GSCE’s and then move onto higher education. He moves onto Europe for uni’s, finds decent flats and sits her down it takes her a while, to get it. 

He tells her to think it over and Jem - Jem isn’t sure she can do this. Not sure she can take Kieren’s future away from him. She’s tough, she tells herself, she can get by. She can. 

But Kieren looks so earnest, so determined and so just sort of nods. Mutters ‘aye, alright then. I’ll talk to mum and dad.’ 

(Hours later, she thinks about the GP and Kieren and he couldn’t have done it. Not her big brother, not this kind, ridiculous boy who’s just sacrificed everything so she can escape. )


End file.
